The unemployment rate in Illinois continues to hold steady at historic levels.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security announced the figures for the month of October on Friday.
IDES Spokesperson Rebecca Cisco says that October was another good month for overall employment in the state.
“Statewide unemployment remains at a record low for October at 3.9%. Job gropwth remains strong with an increase of 1,900 compared to last month, so this represents the highest number of jobs in the state of Illinois.”
The figures were based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and released by IDES. The September monthly change in payrolls was revised from the preliminary report from +4,800 to +8,500 jobs.
Cisco said that two sectors in particular saw the largest growth last month.
The largest gains have been seen in the leisure and hospitality and educational and health services. We have seen significant job growth over the year, with over 57,000 job gained, and again those two sectors impacted the most.”
Compared to a year ago, non-farm payroll employment increased by +57,000 jobs with
the largest gains in: Leisure and Hospitality (+17,500), Educational and Health
Services (+15,500), and Government (+11,700).
The industry sectors with the largest over-the-year declines were: Information (-3,400), Manufacturing (-1,900), and Construction (-1,600).
Illinois non-farm payrolls were up +0.9 percent over-the-year as compared to the nation’s +1.4 percent over-the-year gain in October. The number of unemployed workers decreased from the prior month, -1.9 percent to 251,000, a new record low, and was down -8.6 percent over the same month for the prior year.
The national unemployment rate came in at 3.6%, 0.3% lower than the rate here in Illinois.